Zakir Naik's NGO provided scholarship to ISIS sympathiser: NIA

Days after the NIA filed a FIR against controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik for spreading hate, it has now come into light that his NGO Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) had sponsored an ISIS sympathiser.

Days after the NIA filed a FIR against controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik for spreading hate, it has now come into light that his NGO Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) had sponsored an ISIS sympathiser.

According to the NIA, the IRF had provided Rs 80,000 scholarship to ISIS sympathiser, Abu Anas, a resident of Tonk in Rajasthan, in October last year.

“Anas had planned to go to Syria to fight along with IS in the same period but he was arrested by the NIA in January this year and later chargesheeted,” an official of the anti-terror agency said here on Tuesday.

Yesterday, the NIA conducted a fresh raid at another property linked to Naik and his NGO. The NIA had lodged a case against him and his IRF under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act on Friday.

Since Saturday, the agency has raided 21 properties of Naik, his office bearers, his immediately family members and others holding various posts in his NGO and private television channel.

"During the search operations, video tapes and DVDs of Zakir Naik's public speeches, documents related to property and investment, financial transactions, foreign and domestic funding of the proscribed IRF as well as its associated companies, and electronic storage devices have been recovered," the NIA official said.

"Documents pertaining to inflow and outflow of foreign and domestic funding, which have been recovered during search operations, are being scrutinised," the official said.

Naik is currently out of the country, and reportedly believed to be somewhere in Africa.

Away from India since the past few months, the controversial evangelist did not come to attend the funeral of his father Abdul K. Naik, who died on October 30 here.

The IRF shot into limelight following allegations that Naik's teachings and preachings had inspired terror strikes, including the terror siege on a Dhaka cafe in July this year that left over 20 people, mostly foreigners including an Indian woman, dead.

His Peace TV was banned by Bangladesh following the terror strike.

Since the past four months, Naik and the IRF are under the scanner of Indian agencies for alleged misdeeds, spreading or promoting communal disharmony, inciting feelings of enmity between communities and inspiring or supporting terror acts.